Search form

After lots of meetings, art reviews and laughs the sales team made its way back to Vermont and it has been a whirlwind of follow up e-mails, phone calls and even snail mail packages ever since! During the show, our booth was full of existing (and potential) customers all 3 days of the show.

This year, Art Licensing had a large booth (#204-208) displaying LOTS of beautiful art. We had 18 panels categorized by subject displaying all types of trend right themes (like abstract and lodge) as well as the ever-popular topics (like dogs/cats and wildlife). You can see a virtual tour of our booth on our Facebook page.

Artists from all walks of life come to Surtex to show and market their new collections to manufacturers various products including, but not limited to: stationery, giftware, toys, publishing, and much more. Each year, thousands of people travel to the Javits Center for Surtex and the shows that run with it (the National Stationery Show and the International Contemporary Furniture Fair). Surtex is a great place for artists and agents to display artwork to existing clients as well as to meet and start relationships with new potential manufacturers. This show gives us the opportunity to build extraordinary relationships, friendships and memories!

Artlicensing.com showcases new artists and best selling properties at the Licensing International show in Las Vegas. We had one of the busiest booths in the art & design section with a completely packed schedule, thank you to all that attended.

Michael Katz and myself, Nick Virgilio, were there to provide comic relief for Hong and Ryan and to attend the Disney company's annual North American sales event. McGaw Graphics is a licensee of Disney for poster & prints, framed art, canvas and other décor based products.

The whole world of surface and textile design will converge on New York City May l5-l7 to observe the 25th anniversary of SURTEX, the only business-to-business marketplace in North America devoted to the sale and licensing of original art & design for product development across all categories.

ArtLicensing, (representing artists from Applejack Art Partners, McGaw Graphics, Interlitho, Soho Editions, Washington Green and New Box Licensing), has been exhibiting at SURTEX as one of the show staples since the late 1980's. Attending the show this year will be CEO Jack Appelman, Director of Licensing Hong Campbell, and Licensing Associates Ryan Cameron and Ray Phelps. We will be showcasing our latest Artist Porfolio catalog with over 300 artists (featuring 40+ NEW). Our full archive available for viewing on iPads.

Feel free to drop by our booths 463-465 but it's best to setup an appointment with Ryan, Ray or Hong (please call 802.362.3662). Do hurry as time slots are filling up fast.

Over 2800 new images have been added to our archive in preparation for the event. Visit our "what's new" page weekly for an update.

As I watched Apple's keynote introducing the iPad, late one night back in January, lights went on in my head. "These things will revolutionize our tradeshows and presentations; do you realize what we can do with this technology?!", I yelled to my sleeping wife. The disappointing news was that we would have to wait until April for the shipments. I quickly preordered three units and tried to go to sleep. The next day the idea was presented to the licensing and sales teams, who quickly embraced it with excitement. An amazing brainstorm session proceeded.

The iPads arrived as ordered and the art department began testing applications and busily loading them with our complete archive of nearly 100,000 images with over 300 artists. The iPads had no trouble with the amount of data storage, though problems began to occur with the application we were using and the amount of individual files the program could handle. Back and forth calls with the development company quickly escalated the issues to their VP. "We have never encountered anyone pushing the limits of our software as you are," explained the developers. We worked over a month with them as they added some enhancements; the software became more robust and we completed the transfer of our massive archive - just in time for the tradeshow season.

If you haven't been to our shows, Applejack traditionally reserves a three unit booth at the SURTEX show, one of the largest of spaces on the floor. We’d setup three tables and roll in three large carts containing our entire library of printed portfolios. The portfolios are used to show artwork to clients, artists, and manufacturers. The portfolios contain thumbnails of each image in our archive and the books are flipped through like a catalog. If you do the math you'll realize to hold our entire portfolio of artists, custom collections and some duplicate books you'll need over 10,000 pages! That’s quite a lot of printing, sorting, assembly and weight for our staff to carry around and this all comes at a cost as well. Because we have so much new content daily, the books were instantly outdated and completely obsolete by the next year.

The iPads completely replaced all of this in one fell swoop and made for a much better presentation! We no longer need the books, saving weeks of work for our art dept staff, saving transportation costs in renting a van for the heavy carts, and reducing our booth space to two units. Add the fact that the iPads can be updated by our staff while at the show means that the sales managers have the most up to date images.

The SURTEX show and the iPads were a complete success! We were one of the first companies at the show to feature this new technology and the feedback was amazing. I think Apple sales tripled overnight due to our showing (if only we had worked out a commission plan with Apple prior to the show...). By the next show, Licensing International, many other companies had adopted iPads to replace their technology and were showing their artwork and creations with the iPad. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

Atlanta, Georgia was definitely the place to be last week for the gift & home industry. The Atlanta International Gift & Home Furnishings Market at the America’s Mart displayed an amazing collection of products that featured the hottest colors, themes, and patterns in today’s décor. We were able to peruse the show to check out the latest products and to view our own Art Licensing artwork in these showrooms. We had a great presence at the show; many of our customers featured artwork by our talented bevy of artists and it looked great. We went in and out of showrooms speaking to sales reps, viewing their products, and getting feedback on the show.

One of the most prominent themes that appeared throughout most of the showrooms was religious artwork. It was everywhere! Nearly every showroom had some presence of religious imagery - some only had a few items, and others had entire sections of the showroom devoted to it. The art was a mixture of everything from traditional religious symbols, like crosses and angels, to more modern takes on it, like decorative artwork with scripture added. All of the work had a strong presence, which makes sense in an unstable time, and all of it was very beautiful.

Overall, the show traffic was a bit down, but people seemed somewhat optimistic. We walked the show during the last few days, and there were still buyers floating around looking for product, but it seemed that most were on a hunt for a bargain. There were many price drops and volume deals to be had in an attempt to stimulate orders.

The show was just so vast and the products were really lovely. It seemed that there was nothing that wasn’t included in these showrooms. Everything from décor and accessories to toys and gourmet foods was out on display. It truly was the largest collection of merchandise in one place and it was fabulous!

Ah, trade show season! We’ve just returned from the Surtex (Surface & Textiles) Show at the Javits Center in New York City. This year’s show was amongst the many successful trade shows we’ve had. Overall, attendance at the show was down, but in the Art Licensing booth that wasn’t evident. Our licensing associates had back-to-back appointments each day and our booth saw plenty of traffic; the three-booth space was full of buyers who were at the show to do business. Many exhibitors as well as attendees were very hesitant as to what we could expect this year. Most exhibitors chose a smaller booth space or joined forces to fill the booth, and some exhibitors choose not to attend this show altogether. The show layout was quite different as both shows were on one floor and the Surtex area of the show was considerably smaller this year. In an economy like ours, the only buyers who were willing to go to the expense to travel to the show were those prepared to make it worth their while.

When walking the aisles of the show, there weren’t many obvious trends that stood out as being new or unique. When times are tough, many vendors opt for the safe options and are less likely to take a risk on something very different. As a result, it’s far less likely to see anything out of the ordinary. Proven colors and designs covered the walls at this show. Since the National Stationary Show ran concurrently with Surtex, many of the trend forecasts focused on the stationary industry. Within this realm, the themes that are predicted to be hot are silhouettes, damasks, lace, lattice, birds & butterflies, and animal prints, amongst others. Pattern is a growing area as well, used as both a focal point and an accent. Below are the predicted color trends by trend expert Milou Ket displayed at the show.

So overall, Surtex 2009 was a success! We went with a strong crew and had a busy booth. Now that we’re back, rested, and unpacked, the focus is follow-up. The licensing team has lists of clients that need requests filled and images sent to them. The booth looked great - full of new images from our strong bank of artists as well as our newly created “Art Wheel” that mixed trend information with product images and artwork.

We’re very pleased with the show and are sure we’ll get some strong blast of business from the many clients who came to visit us. We’re already thinking about next year’s show!